936 – Ray’s Disney Holiday Adventure 2019 Day 1

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Episode 936 – Ray's Disney Holiday Adventure 2019 Day 1

[START OF RECORDING]

SCOOTER:    Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and friends beyond the binary, and my patron peeps; hey, patrons.  It’s Scoots.  I’m here to take your mind…I’m here with my buddy Ray who’s about to take over and put you to sleep.  Thanks for supporting the show.

INTRO:    [INTRO MUSIC] Hey, are you up all night tossing, turning, mind racing?  Trouble getting to sleep?  Trouble staying asleep?  Well, welcome.  This is Sleep With Me, the podcast that puts you to sleep.  We do it with a bedtime story.  Alls you need to do is get in bed, turn out the lights, and press play.  I’m gonna do the rest.  What I’m going to attempt to do is create a safe place where you could set aside whatever’s keeping you awake.  It could be thoughts, things on your mind you’re thinking about, feelings, anything coming up for you emotionally or physically.  It could be changes in time, temperature, schedule, whatever it is.  Have I ever talked about hooting before?  I mean, I don’t know, hooting is something I just…I’m reading a book with an owl in it and I just thought of this terrible joke; what does an owl say…I just realized owls probably don’t have toes.

But what would an owl say if it had toes and it stubbed its toe?  Someone said what letter does Linda start with, and they stubbed their toe as they were doing it; they’d say owl.  Probably a better setup for that one.  There’s a free punchline for anybody that knows actually how to write jokes; owl.  I just realized…I’m not even kidding, I’m not trying to be funny; my brain just said Scoots, owls don’t say owl.  I said, huh.  It sounded funny when you thought of it and then gave me the joke, actually, two seconds ago.  That’s a little bit about how my brain works, if you’re new.  I was gonna say…hopefully I’ll remember to come back to that.  What was I gonna say?  Hooting and owls.  But hopefully I’ll remember the name…not just hooting of owls.  Well, there’s Hootie, but I was thinking of the name Hoot, H-O-O-T.

When was that name at its most popular?  But I’ll come back to all of that.  So, whatever’s keeping you awake.  It could be any…it could be bird noises.  Holy moly.  I don’t know why I almost said holy bowly.  Well, a tweety bird makes a tweet, so it’s not that really far…I’m sure there’s owls that you could say well, that owl doesn’t hoot; it says owl, especially when it stubs its toe and it’s trying to say the first letter of something that starts with L.  What’s the first letter of letter?  Oh, I stubbed my…owl.  Okay, but whatever’s keeping you awake, I’d like to take your mind off of that.  What I’m gonna do is I’m gonna try to create a safe place, as I said.  If you’re new, this place might not feel so safe, initially.  It might feel strange or you might say…or unsure, and that’s perfectly normal.

I’m supposed to earn the safe place.  You don’t even have to give me a chance to, but you could think about it.  Let’s just see how it goes.  What I’m gonna do is I’m gonna send my voice across the deep, dark night.  That’s what I’m doing right now.  I’m gonna use lulling, soothing, creaky, dulcet tones, creaky like an old…like a door, like a well-used door, a door that’s had a full life of love and…yeah.  Creaky, dulcet tones.  That’s my…sound of my voice.  Not for everybody but for a lot of people, they get used to it.  They say oh, this is something sleepy about that.  Creaky, dulcet tones; never heard them before.  Because normally, if you have creaky, dulcet tones, you keep it to yourself.  Creaky, dulcet tones, pointless meanders.  We’ve already had a few in there.

Jokes, punchlines without jokes…punchlines without punch.  You got that.  You’d say yeah, your punchlines are more like…they’re definitely lines, or collections of words delivered to me.  I’d say well, yeah, it’s a punchline without a setup.  I guess, so, then it’s just a line.  Creaky, dulcet tones, pointless meanders, superfluous tangents.  I’m here to take your mind off of stuff and keep you company, in reality.  Not so much to put you to sleep.  I’m here as you drift off, so if you’re new, a few things; this is a podcast ideally you consume in a loose, out-of-focus way at first.  ‘Cause if you’re waiting for me to get started or get to the point or start making sense, the third one for sure, that’s not…that’ll be…you’re better off saying huh, I fell asleep before he ever started making sense.

That’s a common review of the show and it can go both ways.  Some people say that in a positive way.  Other people say…they would say I stopped listening, probably.  Kinda try to hold the show loosely, just like you would hold…like you’d have a butterfly if it landed in your hands.  Not to equate me with a butterfly, oh no, or a bird.  I don’t think you’d want…if you were an owl…though usually, those people have those…leather gauntlet thing.  But there’s still…I guess a owl probably weighs a bit, somewhere between five and forty pounds.  I don’t know.  But you still gotta hold it calmly.  An owl holds you calmly in its…it holds me in its gaze.  I know our furry friends that might be listening from terrariums nearby, you might say oh boy, please Scoots, don’t talk anymore about those O double Ls.  I’d say, olls?

No, O double Ls.  Olls?  No, O-W-Ls.  Scoots, actually, the name of the letter’s W, not a double.  Oh, okay.  Got it.  I thought you know what I…here’s the funniest thing; nice to meet you, by the way.  I used to have a fuzzy friend like you that lived in a…it wasn’t a terrarium.  It was an aquarium but I guess if it doesn’t have water in it, can you call it a terrarium?  I call it my home.  Well, here’s the thing; earlier, I made a joke about those O-W-Ls.  Got it on that one.  I was talking about hooting ‘cause you know, most of them…the stereotypical thing is oh, they hoot.  Or some people might say hoo, hoo, hoo, or there’s…was commercials when I was a child about lollipops and the owl…a symbol of wisdom, deservedly, though fuzzy terrarium friends can deserve that, too.

Did you know I had a gerbil named Twitter…no, it was named Chitter.  You do.  Okay, you heard about it.  Oh, cool.  I didn’t know there was a whole community.  Okay.  That threw me off.  I didn’t know you’d have knowledge of past events of my life.  Oh, you’re in my imagination.  No wonder.  I’ll tell you what; instead of run…you know, a lot of times I feel like I’m running on that wheel.  While you’re running on that wheel, could you think of…other than just doing it when I’m trying to sleep, one, it’d be great if you don’t do that anymore.  Now that I know you’re imaginary, could I express my preferences?  Okay, well, you’ll think about it.  But could you come up with any…do you do any jokes?  Okay, I better get back to the intro.  You’re right.

Oh, but I didn’t finish telling you; I thought that…for some reason, I thought owls…then I said huh, that’s funny.  I like the…here’s the thing; I just like the way the word ‘owls’ sounds.  I don’t mind O double L, either.  I wish W was just that.  Could you shorten W?  Is that a…?  No, ‘cause double…oh, double means something different.  You’re right.  Then I thought owls made the sound ‘owl’.  I mean, it might if, yeah, if it was…is that what self-actuating is?  You don’t know.  Okay, you get back to…you enjoy your terrarium, your home, your house.  Is a house…oh, it’s a home.  Also a house, kind of.  I mean, you kinda just bury yourself in those chips which I guess seems pretty comfortable.  Okay, I’ll talk to you later.  You’re right.  I gotta get…so, sorry, new listeners.  Got drawn off, there.

I think I was saying you don’t need to listen to me.  Kinda consume me in a loose way just like you were holding a gerbil named Chitter.  You know, say oh, do you mind if I give you a little pet?  Oh, great.  Then, where was I?  Oh, you don’t need to listen to me.  Also, no pressure to fall asleep, believe it or not.  I’m here to keep you company.  Shows are an hour so you have plenty of time to drift off.  I’ll be here to keep you company either way, so whether you fall asleep right away or you can’t sleep at all, I’m here to the very end for you as your bore-bud, your bore-friend, your bore-sib, and the rest of the terms we use around here, these parts.  So, no pressure to listen, no pressure to fall asleep.  Structurally, this is a podcast that’s a bit different.  Show starts off with business.

That’s how we keep it free for everybody, then there’s an intro which we’re [00:10:00] about three-quarters of the way through or so.  Intro’s around twelve to twenty minutes of me introducing the show in a inefficient way and then go…well, in…inefficiency is kinda me going off-topic, but it serves a purpose; it gives you time to get comfortable, to get ready for bed or to get settled in bed and maybe even drift off.  Some people fall asleep during the intro and then 2% or 3% of people skip the intro.  So you say well, I just want to get to the story.  Start around twenty minutes or so.  I don’t know exactly the time the story will start, but you know, right around there is pretty safe.  There’s a intro, then there’s the business, then there’s a story.

Tonight will be a visit from my neighbor Ray and he’ll give a little recap of his vacation, his recent vacation that I took with him and probably talk about stuff I’d rather…like how much soda I drink and how many bathroom breaks I take.  He loves talking about that.  Spoiler; if that’s interesting to you, I’d…both is a lot, I’d say.  Then there’s some thank-yous at the end.  That’s the structure of the show.  Like I said, this is a podcast that’s here to take your mind off of stuff.  The reason I make this show is ‘cause I’ve been there.  I’ve been there on a lot of different ones.  Last night it was…sometimes you have that…I don’t know what else to call it other than a false start.  I didn’t use my normal bedtime routine ‘cause it was a Sunday and my routine was off, but I used the most effective thing which was reading.

I did have some wind-down time.  Then I even think I got into a place…I was having a little bit of trouble with the temperature because it was cold outside but the night before, I was too warm, so I was very concerned with that.  Then I was trying to adjust the windows and stuff.  I thought I had that under control, then I thought I fell asleep, and then the next thing you know, I said what in the hey?  Wasn’t I asleep?  Why couldn’t I have just stayed asleep?  What, was I asleep for like, two minutes?  Then I said wait, these were the positions I turned to last night and this is how I had my primary set of pillows, then my backup set of pillows I like cooler when I need to switch to cooler pillows.  You know, short…long story long…long story medium-length…so, I’ve been there I guess is what I’m saying.

That’s just one example.  I know how it feels.  That was just plain old frustrating and a little baffling, but not…so, I’m here to take your mind off that, to interrupt that flow.  Let’s say that was you; you just put on old Scoots and then you say, what was Scoots…is Scoots talking about…?  Huh, I wonder if any…there’s probably owls that make the sound ‘owl’ and maybe you could lie in bed…it is a relaxing word to say, owl.  Even maybe if you stub your toe later, you say owl.  Might help; laughter always helps, they say.  Also to say owl instead of ow.  Or maybe you say ow and then later you say owl.  Or how about instead of a snarky…is that a rejoinder when someone says something to you in a playful way that’s a little bit…you say…instead of saying ouch.  That’s a little passive aggressive sometimes, you know?

You say, owl.  They say where, where?  Holy cow.  You know I’m in the…I’m a hoot fan.  You say, I’m sorry, what?  You say, I just got back from the great hootenanny, the horned hootenanny.  You’d say, I didn’t know.  You say, go on and love owls, holy…so, where’s the owl?  You say no, it was a pithy rejoinder or whatever the correct vocabulary words are.  Instead of owl…I mean, instead of ow, I was saying owl.  You lost me.  There’s no owl?  That’s a big…that’s really passive aggressive.  You must have known I was an owl fan.  No, really, I didn’t.  What do you say we go to the hootenanny or whatever?  Well, the next hootenanny’s not ‘til 2021.  Oh, well, I was just…I was wondering, owls aside, when do you think the name Hoot, H-O-O-T, was the most popular and will that name ever come back, you know?

‘Cause we had a furniture store in the Bay Area, a couple of them, called Hoot…I don’t know the second name ‘cause I have dyslexia and when you put a J in the middle of the word, it totally…Js and Ds really throw me off.  I think it was like, Hoot Jugtion…Judge something.  Hoot Judge…Junkins or something.  It’s a furniture store, I believe.  I don’t know if anybody out there…I guess you wouldn’t want to name a pet Hoot unless it was an owl, and then the owl would say how about a real…now every time I hear another owl, I say me?  They say no, I was just talking, and they hoot.  An Owl Named Owl: My Story.  That could be a very short and…oh, I don’t even know if that would be able to be a sleep podcast ‘cause it might be so uninteresting.  Oh, so you’re not gonna buy my biography, An Owl Named Owl?  No, I mean, I would think about buying that one, An Owl Named Hoot.

A Hoot of an Owl, that’s what I’d say…that’s…if you want me to write a thing, though, I’d say that; A Hoot of a Read, ‘cause a owl is a hoot of an owl.  In fact, if I named you, I would name you Hoot or Tooh, T-O-O-H, Tooh.  Tooh.  Okay, anyway, yeah, you’re probably right; I should wrap this up.  If you’re new, give this show a few tries.  It does not work for everybody but for the tons of people it’s worked for, they said it took two or three tries or four or five, or it took me listening to the show, not liking it, and then coming back and being like oh, I get it; there’s nothing to really get.  Give it a few tries.  I just really want to help.  I make the show because one, like I said, I’ve been there but also, I believe you deserve a good night’s sleep and the world will be a better place for you and for me and for everybody if you’re rested.  Yeah, that’s it.  I’m really happy to make this show.  I work very hard, I yearn and I strive, and I really want to help you fall asleep.  Thanks again for coming by, and here’s a couple of ways we’re able to keep this show free for everybody.

Hey everybody, this is Scoots coming to you from 20…the end of 2020, December 2020 when you’re gonna be listening to this.  I just wanted to tell you before Scoots from early 2020 took over, that this episode was recorded in January of 2020.  I sat on it the whole year just because I wasn’t comfortable putting it out because it involves travel and I didn’t want to give anybody a sense of forlorn FOMO or encourage any of that.  But it is our most popular and comforting guest host, Ray Perkins, and it is a trip that took place exactly a year ago now when it comes out.  I thought it’d be fun to put it out.  We usually try to…most years we put out about three Ray episodes a year.  This year was a little different just ‘cause the year was different, and I really appreciate all you being here the whole year for me and Ray and all the other people involved in the podcast.

I could not do it without all of you.  I really appreciate it.  Also, those of you that are Ray’s super-fans, I should have a way in 2021…at some point I’m gonna redo some of the…I’m gonna create a higher-level Patreon level for Ray’s super-fans ‘cause it just won’t work in the main feed of putting out twelve Ray episodes a year, but it could…we could work a budget to get to that.  I’ll also probably have…once we get that going, if it’s successful, I’ll also add it…we’re gonna have a referral program, so that’ll be a free way to support the show coming up down the road to get access to that stuff, too.  Yeah, that’s it right now.  I just wanted to let you know that, that this was recorded in January of 2020 from a trip in…what year is it?  This was 2020, so it was 2019 to 2020 when this trip I went on with Ray, that Ray’s talking about, and it was pleasant re-listening to this episode, so I hope it’s as pleasant for you, a nice, dreamy trip with Ray tonight.  Thanks.

Alright, hey everybody, this is a episode with our guest…our semi-frequent guest Ray, my neighbor Ray.  He’s gonna take things over and talk about…just a little trip report from part of a trip we made recently.

Oh, hello, hello, hello everybody.  This is your friend Ray.  Oh boy, it is so good to be in your ears, [00:20:00] but I know some ofs…some of yous are new, so I wanted to reintroduce myself.  I’m Ray, Ray Perkins.  Pleased to meet you.  Oh boy, is it my honor to be here in your ears.  Hopefully you’ll be my new friend.  I’m here to take your mind off of stuff, keep you company with trip reports from trips I took with Scooter, of all people.  I like to call him the pod boy or Little Andy or Scooter, though I…yeah, I don’t know what to…though, when…in this case, I call him a consumer of soda pop a lot of times when we’re traveling together ‘cause he drinks a lot of soda.  Just on the trips, though.  It’s his vacation.  We’re here and I’m gonna…I do have to…okay, so, oh, if you’re new; yeah, I guess that’s all you need to know.  I’m Ray Perkins.  I like taking trips.

I’m a person.  I’m not of Scooter’s generation; I may be one or two or three generations before him, more experienced, he’d probably say.  We met when he moved in next door to me in about…I don’t know if it was the…it wasn’t the Aughts but it was the…whatever they’re gonna call the last decade.  Before the podcast, of all things, I saw him, he saw me.  He kept walking.  Then I saw him, I waved.  He moved his head, he kept walking.  These are some of my first memories of him.  I said, I don’t know about that young man.  He’s got something.  He’s a little bit of a Grinch or a grouch.  I said I’d like to know him.  I have a loquat tree, so I strategically…it wasn’t…actually, it was just an accident.  It might’ve been the strategery of synchronicity.  I was there checking on my loquat tree.

Oh, for those of you, a loquat is a stone fruit.  Not very popular for consumption.  It looks like an orange berry.  Not that tree many of you are thinking of.  Not the bright, shiny orange berries that some of you are thinking of.  I don’t know what that tree is, but I did want to give…acknowledge that that tree does exist, but this one is…the berries are fuzzy.  The orange is a bit larger than a grape than the ones you might have been picturing which are a little bit smaller like a pea.  Here in California, we have loquat trees.  You might say Ray, you don’t sound like you’re from California.  I’d say well, that’s just where I live right now, today.  I’ve lived here and this is…I stayed Scooter’s neighbor.

So, I saw him many times coming to his…he would go…he had to go down a driveway to get to his apartment which was on the back side of a build…a house that was made into apartments.  I also lived in a house that was made into apartments right next door.  But he didn’t go in the front door; he said Ray, the front door is where my bedroom is, the front of the living room is my bedroom.  When I would visit him, this turned out to be true.  His living room…he only had a one-bedroom apartment because this is the Bay Area.  His living room was cut in half by some curtains and a thing he put up there.  On one side was a bed.  There was just enough room for a…I guess maybe he’s saying this is too much, but he doesn’t live there anymore, so it’s not a violation of his privacy.  But so, he had a bed there.

That’s all he had, was a bed.  It was right up against the wall in the corner, then the curtains were on the other side of the bed.  Then he had a dresser.  Technically, the dresser was in front of the door that you would go in, or the side of the dresser was, and then more curtains.  Then on the other side of the curtains was a sofa.  There was also nightstands, one of which he used as both a side table and his nightstand.  That was the small…the living room was now smaller.  There was the TV, a chair that Koa liked to use.  This is a little tour of Scooter’s old apartment.  Then a hall; not a very long hall, where the restroom was.  Then if you continue down the hall, straight in was the bedroom where…his young one would sleep there.

Then to the right was the kitchen and the door that was his…it was a back door that he used as a front door.  All of that to say…to get there, you had to go down a driveway between the two buildings.  I would see him many times ‘cause I would be out enjoying the day.  Oh, my friends, do I love enjoying the day.  Holy moly.  So, I would see him there and eventually I got his eye contact in a way he couldn’t deny me, and eventually I broke through that ice in a bit.  We got to know one another.  I learned about Bernie the butterfly.  Eventually, I learned about this podcast and you know, we became friends.  We became…we didn’t become fast friends.  Not with Scooter, oh no.  But I mean, I think he probably has become fast friends with someone, but he still has friends from kindergarten, or a friend from kindergarten.  Anyway, we became friends.

I’ve been on the podcast before, but usually I come on to talk about my trips.  Normally, my trips I would take myself, but since then, Scooter…I’ve had the pleasure of traveling with Scooter on trips.  Now particularly, your friend Ray, he likes to take trips to theme parks.  I’m a big theme park fan.  Amusement parks I’ll take second after theme parks, particularly…well, you know, I’ve…Scooter’s actually opened my mind, but I used to just be a Disney-only park-goer.  But now I’ve learned…my heart has grown and my perspectives have grown beyond Disney.  Now, we will be talking about a trip we made, and this will just be one part of the trip, here.  I guess without further ado…so, get in and get cozy because this was the holiday season, whatever holiday season you particularly…however you celebrate your holidays.

Holy cow, I’m glad you take the time to celebrate and have something for meaning for you.  For some of you, that might be…oh, and I just don’t want them.  You know, so I know the holiday season…I hope you could…you have some space to celebrate something.  But you won’t be listening to this in the holiday season, but I was more saying whatever year you’re listening to this is not super important.  I mean, it’s important to you, the year…Scooter’s trained me well on this sleep podcasting thing, I think.  Whatever year you’re celebrating it though is important to you, even if it’s not a holiday.  I guess my way of saying this is I’m trying to be non-specific about years.

Also, oh dear, so I did have one thing to say to regular listeners because a lot of time has elapsed and maybe I’ll have gone back down that road and you’ll be in the future knowing more than me, but originally…now, this was almost more than half a year ago.  I had gone on another trip with Scooter to Los Angeles in Southern California, and we went to three parks.  But I only recorded two episodes.  I had intended to record three about our trips and then Scooter was gonna release them slowly out.  But I think…I don’t know.  I guess what it…now…oh, we just never got it recorded, the one about Universal Hollywood.  I just wanted to say that in case he’s like Ray, didn’t you go to…but maybe you heard it.  Maybe I recorded it after this and that’s the miracle of podcasting there.  But holy cow, let me set the stage for this.

This was late in the holiday…this was the beginning of the holiday season, the first holiday season in the history of the podcast that Scooter was gonna take some time off.  I’m friends with him so I know like you, you say well, you gotta…Scooter, you gotta take some time off.  In the past, all the other holiday seasons, he said well, Ray, it’s slow during the holiday season.  Not as many people need to interact with me whether it’s listeners or other…the other hidden parts of the podcast we don’t know about, all those little things that keep the podcast going.  Those slow down in the holiday season, and Scooter in the past has used that to ramp up production and just get more editing done, more shows recorded.  He’s used the quiet time…again, he said well, I didn’t work as hard because it’s a little different work and I’m getting ahead of myself, so then I could take time off at another time of year.

But a while ago Scooter said to me Ray, last holidays was so quiet, I kinda wish I took them off because then I…instead of just working, working, working…because one of the things is…let’s see, I mean, I don’t know all this.  This is Scooter’s life; not mine.  But you know, [00:30:00] when you’re constantly producing something, you gotta constantly be producing it and then the administration of making it work and all of that stuff.  What you don’t want to do is let things pile up, Scooter.  This is what Scooter told me.  Sometimes he was like well, I’m better off getting ahead.  But he said maybe I could just keep up just enough over the holidays that everything would be okay.  I said, my little pod boy’s becoming a pod person because he’s learning…to me, this was a growth thing.

I said oh boy, is this H-O…I don’t…I did not want to say it out loud.  I said is this H-O-P-E or T-R-U-S-T Scooter’s experiencing with the world here?  Holy moly.  I was touched.  He said maybe I could take some time off and just work a couple hours a day ‘cause Scooter’s definition for time off is working eight hours.  That’s what he does when he’s off.  He works halftime.  I said well, sounds like you’re on a…what you do is you say well, that sounds like…what do you think?  I think you’re thinking things through there, Scooter.  Sounds like you’re onto something.  Then I said well, what…now I had ulterior motives ‘cause I said well, what would you do for that holiday season there to relax with your best friend?  Pardon my assumption.  So, we decided to make a trip.

Now, where else would we go if I was playing the Wizard of Oz behind the scenes but to Walt Disney World?  I don’t want to…I won’t talk about the planning.  Sometimes I talk about the planning with Scooter.  This was a slowly, easily-planned trip, very loosely planned, I guess, but in a good way.  We found ourselves on the Friday…was it the Friday?  Oh, Ray.  No, the Saturday.  Oh, boy.  So, it was the Saturday before…that traditionally, schools were out on that Friday.  Then I think…let’s see, this was around the 22nd or the 21st or something, I don’t know, of December.  It was a Saturday and we had a night flight.  What we did was…now, Scooter, he always goes back and forth.  Now, when you live on the West Coast and you gotta fly to the East Coast, you have two tough decisions unless you have a boat-load of dough.

Even then it’s not possible to just get a direct flight anywhere.  Almost always, you have to take two flights for the most part, especially if you’re keeping it within a budget.  Then you say well, am I gonna fly all day and then get into the East Coast…late night in the East Coast?  Most of the time, no matter what…I mean, because of the time change and everything, you can’t get there before 9:00, 10:00, 11:00.  You say well…then you fly all day which Scooter likes that because he works very well on a airplane.  Then the other option is you fly over the night.  They call that the red-eye.  Now, the red-eye is glamorized in the movies and the term; oh boy, I’m a jet-setter.  I got the red-eye.  I’m living large.  Now, what they don’t tell you is most of those flights, they’re only like, four or five hours, tops.

Now, also, we can…if you listen to this podcast, you might relate to some of Scooter’s machinations within his mind and that sometimes he creates things that aren’t…he creates a situation that comes true or creates more…so, he’s slowly been undoing this.  Like I said, he’s becoming a pod teen from a pod boy or a pod tween, maybe.  He’s growing because he used to dread these overnight flights, especially when he has other…he’s juggling being a parent and all those things.  He said oh, I can’t…I don’t have the emotional wherewithal to deal with being tired and oh boy, it’s just gonna not be fun.  Then a year ago…I think it was a little bit more, we did it and it worked out okay.  He said huh, ‘cause I said Scooter, well, okay, let’s talk about this.  What if you don’t sleep on the flight?  You’ll be very tired.  Okay.

For how long?  Well, it’ll be a miserable…okay, yeah, it’ll be a rough day.  You’re right.  What if we can’t take…what if we never get a hotel room ‘til 4:00 PM?  Then what do I…?  Oh, well, okay, that would be tough.  You’re right, Scooter.  That would be uncomfortable.  Yeah, it would be.  Then we tried it out last year.  I don’t know if we recorded…I think we did, with the pool-hopping.  It ended up working out.  Now, we were tired and we did take a little bit of a nappy-poo, but I think it relieves Scooter.  Now, Scooter also had a C-O-L-D on this…leaving the trip, so he actually was extra-tired because he said well, I’m not feeling good, so maybe I actually will sleep on this plane because my body’s like hey, let’s get some sleep over here.

Here’s what I remember; I don’t know what time we left, but then Scooter was like wow, I really like leaving in the afternoon because it gives me the day to get everything in order.  It’s very relaxing.  This is the second time we’ve been through this.  For him, a lot of times it’s like…even though it’s the second or third time, it’s like the first time for him because he’s still reinforcing the trust in the world thing.  We went to the airport and we got there no problem.  It wasn’t even as busy as we expected.  We got in, we got some…he…we got something to eat for dinner and then we got a flight from San Francisco to Salt Lake City with a layover there.  I remember using the restroom there; a nice restroom.  I remember finding my way through.  Sometimes all these airports start to run together.

It may have been my first time in that airport, but it was a pleasant enough experience there.  Then we got our next flight which probably left around 11:00 or 12:00 PM or AM; 11…I don’t think…I think it was like, 11:00 PM, maybe.  Let’s see, that would be 1:00 AM plus four.  Yeah, so probably around then.  Scooter must have slept.  He wasn’t expecting…I think he did some reading.  I honestly think…I was sitting next to him; I think he probably slept…out of a four-and-a-half-hour, five-hour flight, I think he probably slept three hours or four hours even.  Also, this flight was on Delta which was so great to see Scooter’s podcast on there, and then the podcast from Lauren and Phoebe and the team at Criminal…This Is Love was on there.  Oh boy, was that a delight.  I listened to all…On Being.

I just listened to podcasts the whole time, myself.  Or maybe I fell asleep when it came to Scooter’s podcast, but that was pretty fun to see the podcast on the airline.  Hopefully they’ll keep it on there; a great opportunity.  Okay, so then we flew there.  Now, our flight got into Orlando at about…it was supposed to get in at about 5:00 AM.  It got in about 5:30.  We said okay, what are we gonna do here?  Then we went down…now, Disney has their own buses that go.  They call it the Magical Express.  The good thing is that if you checked your luggage with the tags, that the luggage goes to your hotel and you don’t even have to go fetch it or anything.  Now, it does take six or seven hours because I don’t know if the…they’re not…it’s not like a…what do you call that where you’re…it’s not a high priority, you know.

If you check your…if you didn’t check your clothes or whatever, that…make sure you have a change of clothes.  That’s what I’m saying, and your toothbrush and your bag which we’ve learned that, Scooter and I.  But so, there we go.  We get the Magical Express; it’s a bus.  It’s free.  Strategically for Disney, I think they say well, it’s gonna keep you…if you don’t have a rental car, you’re probably more likely to spend time with us.  I said well, that’s a interesting concept.  But it is convenient.  Now, some people would say oh, it takes too long, those things.  Now, we happened to be lucky.  We were the first…they…it’s like a Greyhound charter-type bus.  You get on there, you wait for it to fill up, and then it goes to a few hotels…of the Disney hotels.  Now, we were staying at…what was the place we were staying?

The Disney French Quarter…Port Orleans French Quarter.  That’s what it was called.  It’s themed after New Orleans.  [00:40:00] It’s a smaller hotel.  It might be their smallest hotel.  More like a motel.  Maybe I’ll talk about Disney hotels at some point because I think it’s important to clarify my opinion only.  Only my opinion, your friend Ray’s opinion.  But I say that just if you’re a person that stays in a lot of hotels, that you know when you see the rate that you’re paying for the room, you would assume it’s a hotel.  This one is not…it’s not a motel, either.  But it is…I mean, oh boy, I don’t want to get myself in trouble here but your friend Ray, I like the Fairfield Inn and Hamp…you know, those places, so I wouldn’t call that necessarily a motel and say it in a bad way.

I would say it’s a very nice place to sleep.  Not a fancy place to sleep; not a luxury place to sleep, but not…and not like when we — Scooter and I — stayed at the Lost Hills Motel.  That’s just a decent place to sleep.  It’s a good place to sleep.  The Port Orleans is a little bit nicer than that but I mean, it’s nothing…I don’t know.  When you look at the price, that’s my only thing, but I mean, that’s just the way they do it.  That’s the way they’ve always done it.  But I just say that because I think of all the people that go there.  Just to prepare you, ‘cause you say well, I travel a lot for work, so I see…I’m gonna pay $200, $300 a night.  You’re gonna have certain expectations that might not be met.  But it’d be…out of all the trips I’ve taken with Scooter, this was the…he said Ray, I’ll never stay at another place again unless it’s…this is way overpriced.

I agree with him, because it’s so small.  Because with a lot of the Disney hotels that…in the affordable range which would be under $300 a night and I know that’s a little bit wild to say, but if you’re looking…when it’s busy, to pay less than $350 a night.  Sometimes you can pay as low as under $200, like in the $120s.  There can be a lot of walking around to get to your room.  This Port Orleans French Quarter, it’s not like that.  Everything is close to your room.  Also, it’s very nicely themed even though it’s a motel setup.  What I mean by motel setup is you walk on the outside to get to your room.  You don’t walk on the inside.  But it’s made to look like little buildings in the French Quarter.

I know, okay, this is where I address anybody…if you’re scoffing or anything, I totally understand that not everybody is a Disney theme park person and that this stuff can be approached in many different ways.  Now, your friend Ray, I realize everything and I have enough room inside for everybody’s thoughts and things, but this is just what I happen to like.  I think Scooter likes it for much different reasons than I do.  He kind of likes schlock.  I don’t see the schlock so much, but I understand it.  Scooter likes that he’s living in a ridiculous situation where I’m more immersed.  But sometimes Scooter gets immersed, too.  I don’t know if that clarifies it.  But I realize that all…I say all this with a grain of salt.  I mean, I realize that not everybody’s in a position for this thing and not everybody likes it.

The good thing about Scooter’s podcast is it’s hundreds of episodes, so I’m just here to put you to sleep ‘cause I know there are a lot of people that do enjoy it, and your friend Ray is one of them.  But it doesn’t mean we live in a gray world.  Now, this one happens to be a pastel world but…and so, if you like one thing, that’s fine.  I happen to like this thing.  I like it but if you don’t like it, you don’t agree, that’s totally okay, too.  I just want to acknowledge that, too, in case…but so, what I…I guess what I’m trying to say in the most sleep podcasty way, is I really like this hotel.  We’ll call it a hotel; we’ll just agree to use their terminology.  Scooter did, too.  Now, Scooter liked it for different reasons than your friend Ray.  I liked it because of the theming, because of the convenience of the layout.

Also, they had many quiet places.  This was some place Scooter and I agreed.  Scooter even took a couple afternoons to work and he worked outside, close to fountains.  He did find most of the fountains, also the smoking area.  But he really…oh boy, did he enjoy it.  I just like the theming, I like the size, I found it quiet.  There’s a horse-drawn carriage going through in the evening every once in a while, cobblestone streets.  There’s a pool, but so…okay, so that’s where we were staying.  What was I talking…?  Oh, we were on the Disney Magical Express thing.  So, we get on the bus and we go to the hotel.  Now, we were all very prepared.  Scooter said there’s…in the world of being a West Coast, East Coast traveler, the idea of going to your hotel and getting a room at 5:30, 6:00 in the morning is just…it’s a dream, but it’s never gonna happen.

Am I right?  Those of you that work in hotels that give out those rooms when you can, holy moly, you are saints.  Now, there’s not always rooms and then there’s hotel policies like why would we give you a room at 6:00 in the morning?  Check-in’s at 4:00 PM.  We actually had zero expectation at getting a room.  Our plan was a little bit different because this was the winter.  The last time we had gone, it was the spring.  It was warmer.  It was good swimming weather.  We decided okay, let’s be flexible.  We’ll see what time we get to the hotel.  We’ll put our bags in storage and we’ll go to a theme park or whichever theme park happens to be around, opening at the time.  We get there off the Magical Express, we have our backpacks and those things.

We said oh, okay, well, we’ll check in and then we’ll go to the bag thingama…Luggage Services; I think that’s what they call it, and we’ll figure that out.  Maybe change our t-shirts and our socks and those things, brush our teeth, and then we’ll go to a park.  This was probably about 6:30 in the morning, we got to the hotel.  We go to check-in.  There’s a little…actually, I don’t know if there was any line now that I’m thinking about it.  Yeah, no, we walk in and then as we’re walking in, there happened to be a couple of people working and this woman looks up.  I think she even started walking towards us.  She said oh, hello.  This is another line of…even your friend Ray gets a little bit…the over-the-topness, the faux…but this person was not faux anything.  But the over-the-top, have a magical day, type thing.

But this person had it, I think.  Oh, welcome.  Oh, we had the tween with us, giving the tween a greeting.  Then Scooter took over and in his more brusque manner said here’s my ID.  Then she started typing away.  Her name was Toni with an I, just in case anybody’s listening.  Holy mackerel, what a miracle.  Again, she was just being pleasant.  We weren’t planning on getting a room.  Then she said oh, look at this, your room’s ready.  She said, I was gonna try to find you a room but there’s already one here assigned to you that’s open.  I’m sure the hotel people can’t be pleased about that because they want those rooms busy all the time, but I…we almost all fainted.  We said wait a second, our room is ready?  You gotta be kidding me.  It was a moment to live in history.

Now, probably not the best thing because you don’t want to have that expectation ever again, but it was like holy mackerel, you mean I could change…I could brush my teeth in my hotel room; we don’t have to store our bags.  Then we went through a little bit of checking in that took a little bit of time there.  I think Scooter immediately wanted to…I think he immediately bought a coffee.  But maybe he made a coffee in the room.  I don’t even know.  I’m trying to think what he did because I think…oh, he wanted to buy the unlimited mug, but we won’t talk about that right now because they didn’t have it.  It was too early in the morning.  They said, we don’t have the unlimited mug.  He said oh, bummer.  They said yeah, well, come back in a hour.

So, I think he probably made a coffee in the room or maybe he bought a coffee or maybe he did…knowing Scooter, he did both.  But so, we went to the rooms [00:50:00] and got our teeth brushed, our socks changed.  I don’t know if Scooter even hopped in the shower.  I have no idea.  Now Scooter, he has dyslexia, so we said…we came with our crew that we had and we said okay, what’s our plan here?  Now, at this particular time in the history of the Disney parks, there was…there’s four parks, right?  You got your Disney Studios, you got your Magic Kingdom which is a bit like Disneyland, you have your Epcot Center which is going through a lot of construction, and then you have your Animal Kingdom which is a bit like a safari animal celebration place.

Now, also we’re there at the busiest time of year, so the hours are very extended.  Then on top of that, Disney had just opened these new Star Wars things at the Hollywood Studios.  So, that park was already open I think at 7:00 AM or 6:00 AM ‘cause they have these extra hours.  We knew that was out because we knew that it was gonna be super busy and you really had to be there when it opened if you wanted to go on the Star Wars rides.  You could always find out that stuff from Len Testa and the Touring Plans people or the unofficial guide.  That’s where we get our information from.  But so, we said okay, that park’s out.  Then we said okay, well, I think we had some FastPasses.  I don’t know.  Let me look in my notes, here.  Let me just check a couple things here.

Yeah, so we had some FastPasses for the Epcot Center in the evening, so we said well, we don’t want to go to Epcot Center.  I think the Epcot Center opened at 9:00 or maybe 8:00, and then Animal Kingdom opened at 9:00, and then Magic Kingdom had opened at 7:00 with early Magic Hours.  So, with the early extra Magic Hours or something, they call it, it means the park opens an hour early for the people that are staying at the Disney hotels so you can get in an hour early and get some rides on.  Scooter and I go back and forth between using that and not using it because you gotta be up pretty early, but you can get more done.  But then the other side of it, when you talk to the crowd experts as the park fills up faster…but Scooter…Scooter’s…brought me around ‘cause then he said you’re probably right; we’ll just go to the park when it opens.

We don’t gotta go to a park when it opens early.  But Scooter likes to take a break and so do I, so then we kind of have gone back the other way ‘cause it’s like well, if you get there earlier before…and you have the hotel advantage, you could get a lot more done and you’re done earlier so you could take a break earlier.  If you take a break earlier, it’s more likely to be a longer, refreshing break.  But you know, if we do multiple episodes about this vacation, then you’ll probably hear more about that.  But so, at this time, it was already pushing 7:00 and we said well, Magic Kingdom’s already open, so should we go there or will it be too busy?  Scooter said well, we’ll just go to the Animal Kingdom.  We’ll go now and we’ll get there early.  Then all of us kinda looked at him because he didn’t realized he had missed an hour because of his dyslexia.

We said no, no, it doesn’t open ‘til 9:00.  He said right, we’ll go now and we’ll get there at like, 45 minutes before it opens.  Then we said Scooter, it opens at 9:00.  It’s 7:01.  He said oh, okay, I guess we’ll go to the Magic Kingdom then and we’ll just see how it goes.  It might be busy already; we might not be able to go on any rides.  We’ll just deal with what we deal with.  Because I guess sleeping at this point was out because we said oh, okay, we’ll do some stuff for a little while, we’ll go back at lunchtime and sleep for a little while.  Now that we have the luxury of the room in a ironic way, the stress of waiting for the room and being tired is relieved because you know you have a room to go to whenever you do feel tired.  The next thing we do, we go to the bus stop.

Now Disney, they’re refining how they do things, but most places…some places you could take a boat; some places you could take a gondola, but a lot of places you take a bus to the park.  We go out, we go to the…now, you can check on a app for the most part at this point, but we didn’t know.  We went to the bus.  We got to the bus stop at…oh, we caught a bus at around 7:10 AM, maybe exactly.  It was actually, according…oh, maybe we got to the bus stop at 7:10 and the bus came at 7:18.  Yeah, that’s what it is.  It was raining and drizzling but it was warm.  We had rain gear.  We expected the rain.  It was drizzling, it was warm.  Compared to the Bay Area, it was warmer but not balmy.  So, we were already used to a rain with a slight chill, so it was like oh boy, this is very tolerable weather.

Also, the rain…now, the rain, you might think oh, it makes the parks less busy.  That’s sometimes true and sometimes isn’t.  We got to the park exactly around 7:30, the Magic Kingdom.  Now, you go in, you go…you bus, you have a bit of a walk, you go through, they check your bags and things, then you go through the turnstile which is now just a circle that you touch.  They had these things called Magic Bands that you wear which is a bit like a Fitbit with Mickey on there.  You use that.  You could use it a bit like Apple Pay, but you also use it to check into the park, to check in for rides you have a pass for.  Of course, they also use it to collect data, but it’s interesting the data they must be collecting, of crowd movement and those things.

But so, we got to the park and it was already open but it was only…so, the main street is open.  That’s Main Street USA, they call it.  They had a giant tree, they had holiday music playing and the ambient music track there, and it was very nice.  The first thing we did was we tried to look at Starbucks, but it was like an hour wait for Starbucks ‘cause they have a Starbucks there.  We said okay, no Starbucks.  Then we had…we looked at the castle which was very nice.  I think it’s Cinderella’s castle.  Then for the Magic Hours, they had been already going at 7:00.  Now, it’s about 7:30, 7:35.  The lands that are open are Fantasyland and Tomorrowland that are open during this FastPass time.  We went and then you show your hotel thing.  They scan it.  I think they scan your wristband and then you could go pass.

They let people on Main Street, anybody, but then to go to get the rides, they check to make sure you’re staying at the hotel.  But again, we only had…at this point, a fifteen-minute head start.  We went, and first we looked at this one ride, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train which is a bit like a family roller coaster.  It looked like that’s the busiest ride there at that park at this time.  It’s just very popular.  It gets a long line right away.  Though if you watch the touring plans, they say okay, well, actually, about a half-hour after the park opens, it takes the initial people that were there when it opened…and then the…you have a little bit of a lull.  But it didn’t look like a lull at that time, so we skipped it.  It didn’t have a wait time.  Maybe it wasn’t even running.  But we went to Peter Pan which is the next busiest ride, normally.

There was no wait for Peter Pan.  On 7:41, according to my notes, we went on Peter Pan.  That is a…that’s…I think you could say a archetypal Disney park ride for families, a dark ride, they call it.  You go on there, you get in a pirate ship that flies over London.  You go with the kids and Peter Pan and the mermaids and, you know, the Lost Kids, and you know, King Captain or whatever his name is, and Smee.  It all works out just like…this is fantasy.  Let’s not worry about it.  That was a fun, fun ride, but it’s even more fun when you don’t wait in line for it.  Then we went and we said well, let’s just go see the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.  I don’t think Scooter or I did; I think the rest of…they said well, let’s just try.  Now or never kind of thing.

We went on that and it was drizzling and it was not a very long line at all, maybe thirty minutes or something.  We went on that, then we took a break at one of Scooter’s favorite bathrooms.  Now, Scooter knows — and this was a joke the whole trip — he knows all the bathrooms everywhere because he drinks so much [01:00:00] liquids that, you know, he’s gotta go when he has to go.  He likes the ones by Gaston’s Tavern.  He says those are usually the…a little tucked away, usually pretty clean, usually not as busy as the other nearby bathrooms, so he said let’s go there.  Again, it’s drizzling.  We’re in a little bit of a heady state, but all…spirits were high.  Then we went on the Little Mermaid ride.  Again, no wait.  This is a ride they have at California Adventure and Disneyland and…yeah, California Adventure, and then they have it in the Magic Kingdom.

You had to walk through the whole queue.  Now, the queue in Magic Kingdom is much better than the one in Disneyland.  You kinda go through grottos and all those kinda things and there’s a lot of animated stuff and whatever that bird is whose name I forget, the one that calls it the smurfdorf or whatever.  Oh, this is a spork.  It’s for fixing your hair.  Why can’t I think of that name?  Squabble.  No, it’s not squabble.  Maybe I’ll remember.  But that’s a nice ride, too.  It has all the hits, it’s got singing, it’s got dancing, it’s got the wonderful Ursula, animatronic.  It has the big numbers; it’s got Ursula.  It’s a fun ride, and no wait at all.  We went on that one, then we went on the teacups.  Now, I didn’t go on.  Just Scooter…the teacups are supposed to have Christmas music, but they didn’t.

I think that was only at night.  But Scooter went on the teacups.  He had fun with his tween there.  Then we started to notice…an objection, actually.  Even your friend…now, we didn’t file a complaint or a disapproval but just because we were so busy, but it was raining, but not hard.  When you think about the futures of these parks you might say okay, this is unsustainable.  But also you think about how the unsustainability relates…that it’s two sides of the same coin or whatever you’re gonna say.  Even though it wasn’t raining hard, there was a lot of puddles.  I said what are these people…these Disney people, they don’t know how to drain?  I don’t pay this money to walk in puddles.

But mostly because we were tired; it was just a lot of gruffing, but realistically…I mean, I guess I’m saying they gotta do something because it wasn’t huge puddles, but when you’re paying $100 to go somewhere, you say I don’t want to…I mean, I guess…I’m not trying to be a snob, but you say if you’re gonna manufacture something and have a manufactured experience, please manufacture it without the puddles, please.  I would say this is probably related to the water table in Florida.  Let’s just be honest.  But again, I’m taking the larger issue but also putting in the customer service context.  That was not great.  Now, a lot of us did have wool socks on because we expected the rain, but I don’t know.  It was just something none of us were happy about on a few different days.

You said, what are you doing here?  How do you got these puddles?  Don’t you have some sort of jet stream engine or something?  What the…what in the mackerel?  I’m not just talking about little puddles; I’m saying they just have these road…walking areas which are like highways.  You say, you can’t have a puddle there because everybody’s gotta walk through it.  I don’t know.  Not to be Debbie Downer or whatever you want to call me, but that was that.  Next thing we did was we went on Space Mountain.  Is that right?  Yeah.  We went on…a lot of puddles, a lot of rain, we were getting wet.  Still warm, we still had the right gear.  We didn’t have rain pants or anything, so our feet and our…it wasn’t raining hard enough that our legs were getting very wet, but we knew we didn’t have much time.

But again…oh, the other thing was the crowds had not picked up even though this was around…now 9:00…after 9:00 in the morning, probably.  Maybe 8:30.  Probably like 8:30, maybe closer to 9:00.  It had not got busy, so we went on Space Mountain with zero wait.  We thought about riding it again but then we said well, let’s make the most of it.  Then we went on the PeopleMover which is a really nice ride.  Again, when it’s so busy like this time of year, the PeopleMover at this time had no wait or like, five minutes.  But when I say no wait, I mean under twenty minutes when I say no wait.  But also, what was I saying?  Oh, the PeopleMover at different times during this trip was up to over an hour to wait to go on it which to me was a little bit unacceptable.  But so, we waited no time and it was very pleasant.

Oh boy, except that we were tired, so it was a little bit of a lulling ride.  It’s like the Sleep With Me podcast of the Magic Kingdom, that PeopleMover.  Tomorrow Way PeopleMover, WEDway PeopleMover, it’s been called.  Tomorrow Way Transit or something.  But again, this is one of these situations when it’s early and there’s no crowd.  You’re trying to make hay while the sun was not shining.  We went on the PeopleMover, then we went on Buzz Lightyear which is one of those games where you…like, squirt gun stuff.  That was fun.  Scooter won, of course.  He wants everybody to know that.  But other people had higher scores than him outside of our group.  Just in our group, he always gets the highest score.  Sometimes his brother Buck beats him.

Okay, so we went on Buzz Lightyear, then we used another restroom, not as high on Scooter’s restroom…let’s see, Scooter’s…oh, so Scooter said…okay, so there’s…in Tomorrowland.  Scooter says he didn’t use…he does…no, he thinks he did use…there’s a couple different restrooms but the main restroom is like, near the restaurants across the way from the cars, whatever they’re called; Tomorrowland Speedway.  Those restrooms are very high-traffic, so if you’re looking for a quality, fast restroom or something that’s likely to be clean, don’t use that one.  But that’s the one we used.  It’s just a convenient stop.  Then we were all starting to get hungry, and so we got some croissant sandwiches at the Friar’s Nook in Fantasyland.  Apparently, they had just started serving breakfast recently.

It was a new thing and I think those came with tater tots.  It was decent, I mean, for a Disney World breakfast, it was palate…like, I’d say…I don’t know.  I’d have to figure out how we’re gonna rate the food, but pretty good.  Nothing as good as…a little bit better than you’d get at one of the fast food restaurants, I’d say.  The tater tots were good.  Then, next thing we did was we headed through and we went to a mansion of 99 happy friends from the big farm, the big farm mansion.  That is a classic.  Oh boy, was that a classic.  We had fun for that one.  That’s just a great classic to go on.  Now, in Disneyland, they have a layover, whatever they call it, a makeover, the Nightmare Before…the fun…the dream thing before Christmas overlay.  But in Disney World, at Magic Kingdom, they do not have that.

But it does just fine on its own.  I mean, what are you gonna say?  It was great.  Then we headed over to Pirates of the Caribbean.  We joked with Scooter’s tween that she used to call it Pirates of the Carabiner.  Independently, she didn’t…I don’t think she even made this connection.  She would say oh, Pirates of the Carabiner.  Then she would say oy, my keys.  That’s really what she thought they were saying; not ahoy, mateys.  She’d say, I’m from the Pirates of the Carabiner.  Oy, my keys.  That always gave me a laugh.  Oy, my keys.  Where are…?  What did I…?  Oh.  Like, a little Pirate of the Carabiner.  But then we had more laughs ‘cause we realized the nuance of…accidental, in this case, but you say oh, if you keep your keys in a carabiner, the Pirate of the Carabiner might take your keys.

[01:10:00] Then you’d say oy, my keys.  This is a classic attraction, just like with the mansion of the big farmers.  This is one of the big ones and especially when you hit it early in the day like this, there’s no wait and it really…oh boy, and it’s a little bit different.  I did cover the differences between the Disney World and the Disneyland one, but it’s been a while since I’ve been to Disneyland anyway.  Really enjoyable, but then what happened, for the first time ever…I feel like Elsa now, singing, but…is that who sings that, for…?  I don’t know.  No, that’s Anna who sings that, Anna who sings that.  But so, the ride stopped moving.  I mean, that’s happened before, but so, we get into the part of the ride about halfway through where you’re in a big room.  It looks like your indoors, outdoors thing.

The pillaging, the pirates and the pillages have gone on.  You get to the big musical number where there’s like, you come into the room; on the left hand side are a few different pirates and they’re singing yo, ho, ho.  Then up ahead are more pirates in different places on a bridge, off to the left in the housing.  Maybe they’re…I don’t know if that’s when there’s one off to the right with the pigs, but…and they’re all singing this song and it’s layered.  But so, we stopped moving there, right in front of the ones that were singing, with a donkey that sings, I think, or a mule.  We were stuck there for a while.  I mean, we didn’t have video cameras or those…I don’t think it would have caught the moment, but long enough that you were able to really notice that…you say wow, do they…I don’t even know what you could do with…what is that?

Something as a mother of invention or whatever, because…so, each of these auto-magic characters has their own speaker system, independent audio tracks, I believe.  They’re all synced up.  It really works as far as binaural…this is not binaural ‘cause you’re really there, but so, you’re listening to them and the quality of the audio is…we were just stuck there long enough that…and then we moved forward a little bit.  Then they made it…they kept making announcements; stay seated, just wait, we’re working on it.  Then they started making announcements that they were gonna have to do a full reset or a restart…just like with your modem or whatever, try to restart it.

At some point after that, we started flowing backwards which I don’t know if that was just the lack of forward water or what, but we flowed backwards back to the three men and the donkey or whatever where eventually we stopped moving again.  We listened to more of the music.  We were all in good spirits so it wasn’t like oh boy, but it was maybe fifteen minutes of…maybe even twenty minutes of sitting.  Then we finally got moving again, concluded that ride.  Oh, yo-ho-ho…Scooter wrote, stuck in the yo-ho-ho room.  Boat went backwards.  That’s the truth.  Then we said let’s call it a day, except for the tween.  She said, what else are we gonna go on?  We said, let’s call it a morning, not a day.  We said no, no, let’s go back.  Let’s get the bus.  Let’s take a little nappy-poo.

So, we all caught…we walked to the bus stop.  We got the bus at 10:47…we were waiting for the bus, according to Scooter’s notes, and then we went back to our hotel and because we had a room, there was no stress of like oh, are we gonna rest?  By like…according to Scooter, between 10:00…between 11:15 and 11:30, he was asleep ‘cause I think he does a little reading to help him fall asleep.  The next time…I’ll do another episode soon about this, continuing this trip, but I could tell you one teaser was at 2:30, Scooter was already drinking soda, unlimited soda, because I could see that’s his next note.  Yeah, so, I’ll talk to you again soon, my friends.  Oh, my friends, so good to be back in your ears, taking you on a little journey with your friend Ray.  Goodnight.

[END OF RECORDING]

(www.leahtranscribes.com)